dj bean

After earning his spot, McQuaid earns his dollars

So much of the usual work had already been done for the Bruins began the offseason. With only three players to worry about (excluding Marc Savard) in Brad Marchand, Michael Ryder and Tomas Kaberle, the typical process of adding free agents or retaining them was nothing big. Ryder and Kaberle left, Marchand, once signed, will stay, and the Bruins will hit the ice in September with a roster very similar to the one that won the Stanley Cup exactly one month ago to the day.

When Adam McQuaid inked his three-year contract extension Thursday, it showed that the B’s will be keeping a piece of their championship-winning team around for the long haul. While the re-signing represent a desire for more of the same, McQuaid provided the Bruins with some change in their first title seasons in 39 years.

Not long before he had reached cult hero status with his hair or the “Darth Quaider” nickname given to him by Andrew Ference’s daughter, McQuaid was simply waiting his turn. As a healthy scratch for the first six games of the regular season, McQuaid spent the better part of the schedule’s first month wearing a suit for games, and getting his work in during practices.

The six defensemen on the ice for the Bruins as they won the Stanley Cup were Zdeno Chara, Dennis Seidenberg, Andrew Ference, Johnny Boychuk, Kaberle and McQuaid. The team opened the season with Chara, Seidenberg, Ference, Boychuk, Matt Hunwick and Mark Stuart. The argument could be made that McQuaid’s stable play allowed the Bruins’ blueline to take on the changes that it did throughout the season.

In the absence of Boychuk, who suffered an arm injury against the Rangers on Oct. 23, McQuaid was exactly what he was expected to be. He was safe, reliable and, as he proved in his fourth game of the season, tough. When it came time for money to be shed to make room for the eventual return of Savard to the lineup, Hunwuck was deemed expendable. The move was directly tied to both Savard and McQuaid, as it freed up some space financially for the center while cementing McQuaid in the Bruins’ six defensemen.

After Steven Kampfer stepped in for an injured Mark Stuart in December and proved that he was capable of handling 20-plus minutes a night, the Bruins had a decision to make as Andrew Ference returned from his upper-body injury. Someone out of the trio of Kampfer, McQuaid and Stuart figured to be scratched, and once again, McQuaid ended up sticking in the lineup. Stuart ended up being the odd man out, and the team showed it by sending him to a team that used to play in Atlanta in a deal that brought Rich Peverley. It was on that very day that the B’s brought in Kaberle, and with everybody healthy enough to play, Boychuk was the scratch against Ottawa. Eventually, Kampfer would lose his spot and get injured playing for Providence at the end of the season, but McQuaid made the most of his opportunity, and by March was playing between 17 and 22 minutes regularly after months of getting between nine and 14 minutes a night.

“He’s progressed to a point where he’s a fixture in our six,” general manager Peter Chiarelli said in a conference call after the signing. “I see some shut-down abilities in Adam. I see a positive two-way component to his game that’s improving. His passing’s improving, so I’d like to say he’s going to turn into a top four defenseman at some point. He’s 24. In four years he’ll be 28, and he’s a guy at that point where you can make a real, solid determination if he’s a legitimate top four at that time. He’s got the game to play shutdown minutes, as Adam admits himself, he has to continue to improve and we give him areas to improve on. But he certainly has the framework to be in that shutdown role at some point.”

In signing McQuaid to a deal that reportedly commands an annual cap hit of $1.56 million, the Bruins aren’t saving major dollars compared to what they’d be spending should they have kept Stuart. The Jets (then the Thrashers) re-upped Stuart on a deal that will carry a $1.7 million cap hit in each of the next three seasons.

Given the similarities between the two, one could have determined last season that McQuaid was a cheaper version of Stuart. Given that he brought the same style of play for around $1.1 million less, it was hard to argue. Now, the two are on the same level, as McQuaid’s cap hit is just under $150,000 less than that of Stuart. Yet in McQuaid the Bruins have someone without Stuart’s injury history and someone they have bigger plans for. When Stuart was a restricted free agent last year, the two sides agreed a one-year deal would be best. In McQuaid’s case, they didn’t hesitate to keep their guy for multiple years.

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